


Stuck in My Heart

by Blake



Category: TOLKIEN J. R. R. - Works & Related Fandoms, The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Caradhras, Cultural Differences, Flirting, Friends With Benefits To Lovers, Lothlórien, M/M, Moria, Secret Relationship, Sexual Tension, book canon, except they're not inappropriate at all because I support them fully, falling in love with your casual fling, inappropriate flirting at the council of elrond, inappropriate fucking while the fellowship sleeps
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-22
Updated: 2020-08-22
Packaged: 2021-03-06 16:47:03
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,362
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26052124
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Blake/pseuds/Blake
Summary: Gimli and Legolas start an illicit affair in Rivendell. Neither of them has any idea it will end up being the kind of love that's worth saving the world for.
Relationships: Gimli (Son of Glóin)/Legolas Greenleaf
Comments: 15
Kudos: 89





	Stuck in My Heart

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this because Tolkien made everyone stay in Rivendell for TWO MONTHS. He also provided no motivation for why Legolas and Gimli join the fellowship. These are my conclusions.
> 
> This will be four chapters. If you want something to do in between chapters, may I recommend watching [my favorite youtube video](https://youtu.be/k4jN_8A-4QM).

For hours on end, the gathered council speaks of war and shadows, and all Gimli can focus on is the damned elf.

In his defense, the elf started looking first: curious, appraising glances that faded shyly away each time Gimli caught them, like so many frail snowflakes in a warm palm. But with enough encouragement, even the wettest snow starts to stick. Eyes soften and flutter, knees melt ever so slightly apart in invitation-challenge, hands fidget with lips. It is an unmistakable dance, no matter how strange it is to see it play out on immortal features, nor how slow Gimli is to truly believe he is the object of its intent.

_Ah, it is only a trap_ , he realizes with dual relief and disappointment once his father has spoken and the elf, as well—Legolas, whose father once imprisoned Gimli’s own. Mirkwood is full of sweet, sticky pools and plants that draw the unwary into their sleepy depths and never let go, and so it must be with its king and its prince: some magic ability to ensnare and keep. That would explain why Gimli can hardly tear his gaze from the broad, smooth planes of a face so different from any he has ever before called attractive. That would explain why Legolas kept paying attention to _him_ , despite the animosity between their families. That would explain why Gimli feels inexplicably tall, proud, and powerful in the eyes of a warrior prince likely twice his age or more.

To grasp for some control over his prison, since freeing himself from it seems unlikely, given the grave conversation going on around them, Gimli pokes at its walls to prove he knows they’re there. He slouches low in his seat with a hand resting suggestively high on his leg; with his other hand, he circles the tip of his thumb across the smooth wooden jut of his chair’s arm and narrows his eyes at Legolas with a knowing smirk.

He expects to see Legolas turn away in irritation or indifference, like a frustrated carnivorous plant snapping shut as its prey realizes its mistake and tries to fly away. But Legolas merely melts further into his seat, eyes blazing dark where they fix on the movements of Gimli’s hand, while a light dusting of rich color spreads across the high shelf of his cheeks. It seems that whatever this trap, they are both equally stuck in it—or else it is such a clever trap that Gimli can’t help but admire its construction and offer himself as tribute to the proficiency of its design.

The great meeting ends with no great answers, but Gimli, at least, is relieved to be told that no action will be taken immediately. If scouts must be sent and further counsel sought before the ring goes south, then there are ample excuses to convince his father to stay in Rivendell. For the sake of the free peoples of Middle Earth, Gimli’s party might stay—at least as long as the prince from Mirkwood does, or until Gimli gathers enough snow in his palm to sculpt a shape with, to know with his hands.

~~~

Being an open-minded dwarf with an appreciation for well-crafted design of all kinds, Gimli is initially impressed by Rivendell’s large, open archways, its use of natural light, and the way each turn in the stone mimics the long, narrow shape of the surrounding valley. But by the end of the week, he has cursed the architecture twenty times over. Never has there been a structure less conducive to illicit romance. Or not-romance. Gimli wouldn’t know what it is, exactly, since the open doorways and free-flowing air of the place haven’t allowed for more than a few words in exchange between him and his father’s enemy’s son, at dinner tables and in crowded great halls.

“I do hope the elves of Mirkwood can be of some help on this quest,” Legolas announces at a formal dinner one evening, biting the tiniest morsel of food off a fork—the size of the bite almost teasing, somehow, making Gimli salivate angrily at the thought of how much more could fit in that wide, expressive, yet quiet mouth. “If only to improve relations with—” Here, his eyelashes (not his eyes, which remain lowered, for that would be too noticeable at a full table) flicker in Gimli’s direction—“the other free peoples of Middle Earth.”

“Free,” Gimli’s father scoffs, ever bitter about events that happened decades ago, which surely the lovely prince could have had no part in. “No thanks to the elves of Mirkwood.”

Gimli wipes his mouth with the fine cloth napkin, noticing the press of his teeth under his lips, the way they would feel under a kiss. “Indeed, it seems the sentiments of the Mirkwood elves have changed, if they have opened doors for and shared the beauty of their lands with such base and lowly creatures as have so recently escaped their grasp.” Gimli is not sure if he is defending the elves’ actions in allowing for Gollum’s escape, or if he is simply trying to stealthily communicate that if he were the base and lowly creature to whom Mirkwood’s prince opened his arms, he would see no reason to attempt escape.

There is some tense murmuring around the long table and an even more tense peacemaking attempt by a brown-haired elf a few chairs away.

Legolas does not lift his eyes from his plate (or rather, from Gimli’s hands, if Gimli’s read on the angles of his line of sight are to be trusted), but once the murmuring settles and some new topic lights up the table, he says, quietly, “We _have_ opened doors. Our doors are quite open, for those who would appreciate our beauty.”

Gimli grips his wine cup so tightly it cracks, and he curses again every choice in architecture and design in Rivendell that makes it so impossible to further speak with Legolas on the subject of his open doors.

There are formal dinners, formal meetings, and all the time in the world to wander the grounds in autumn light and see the same sights over and over again. Gimli takes different walking routes every day, but he never manages to run into Legolas. There are too many routes to take, and if Legolas is taking a different route every day, too (as Gimli likes to imagine, childish hope tight in his breath), perhaps they shall never run into one another (as Gimli worries, childish despair clutching his gut). But all it would take is one intersection—one serendipitous exchange to at least establish a private communication and decide on a second meeting place where more words might be whispered. And so Gimli keeps wandering, telling his father he’s looking for and collecting recommended improvements in the buildings to report to their host. First and foremost, to his mind, there should be closing windows and doors, so that rooms could be located, snuck into, and then used for private conversations without the constant observation of every keen eye in the valley.

There are formal nights of song and music, too. Those, at least, are more entertaining than the dinners and meetings, for enough eyes are trained on the performers that Gimli and Legolas can at least _look_ at one another without being noticed.

What these nights make up for in eye contact, however, they lack in musical variety. The first hours-long, melancholic ballads with disconcertingly cheerful melodies are lovely enough, especially when Gimli imagines a certain elf perhaps growing up listening to them. But after a few hours, the songs begin to blend into one another: one long, astonishingly condescending meditation on the theme of how unfortunate mortal life is. The only variation is the occasional lively contribution from one of the hobbits, whose little songs are very apparently more entertaining to the inhabitants of Rivendell than are the ancient, well-wrought harmonies of the dwarves, who are not once invited to sing by their hosts.

“Do the elves of Mirkwood not sing?” Gimli asks on one of these nights, while yet another plaintive song slogs on at the head of the room. He keeps his eyes forward, so as not to make it too clear to whom his curious question is addressed. His father may interpret it as an insult, and that is well enough. Gimli doesn’t want his family to know that he hopes to goad one elf in particular to sing, nor how sweet he imagines the song of the prince’s soft, sweet voice to be. Not until he knows for sure what the elf wants from him. It would be embarrassing indeed to expose his interest prematurely.

But before his father can think of a properly bitter reply, Legolas, a few seats to Gimli’s right, says, sure and clear as laughter, _too_ sure to be sincere, “No, we do not.”

Gimli turns to look directly at him and notes the stretch of a smile at the taut, pink corner of the elf’s lips. The secret of Legolas’s playful lie spills warmth into his chest. An elf with a sense of humor about himself—a prince amongst his kind, and no doubt about it.

Then, the next night, as the crowd files into the music hall (which could be designed much more effectively for better acoustics), Legolas stands before Gimli’s party. It punches a full breath out of Gimli, for this is the first time they have stood so close, and the physical reality of how their bodies fit together sends Gimli’s fingers tingling with the desire to reach out and feel. Legolas is the perfect height to pull down by the hair in a good grip and angle for a kiss. He’s the perfect height for licking across the soft ridge of his ribcage, where bone would give way to the soft, heaving flesh of his stomach, like the half-solid stretch of sand that mixes with the bubble of a lake’s lapping waves. Oh, how the sand would give and the waves would lap at his tongue.

The thoughts overtake Gimli so quickly that he doesn’t realize how inappropriate they are until Legolas meets his eyes with a knowing—and _pleased_ —look. “I should love to hear some dwarven voice raised in the ecstasy, tonight, of song.” Legolas directs most of this proposition to Gimli’s father, who takes to the idea with much skepticism. Meanwhile, Gimli rapidly weighs the pros and cons of reaching up right now to smear a silencing finger across Legolas’s teasing mouth and demanding that he take what he wants or leave it. Unfortunately for his numb-wanting mouth, he decides that course of action would be in no one’s best interest.

“Then give us reason to sing,” Gimli says, a little surprised at himself for how gruff it comes out. Ashamed, he walks away to take a seat and waits for his party to join him.

Halfway through the yawning night, Gimli’s shame hardens to regret. He goes to seek out Legolas, who is seated further away from them than usual. It is an awkward affair, but he manages to make his way to the telltale moonshine hair without it looking like as much of a direct errand as it is. He stops short at the elf’s chair, as though his walk across the room was interrupted by sudden inspiration, and looking into the startled, wide, dark eyes that meet his, sudden inspiration doesn’t seem so much of a lie. “I do not like to sing in front of crowds,” Gimli murmurs, as quietly as possible, voice lowered into sort of an apology.

Legolas’s eyes dip low on Gimli’s face. Seated, he’s the perfect height to tip his head back and taste the sharp line of his smooth jaw, the sweet column of his pale neck. “Perhaps a private concert, then?” When Legolas meets his eyes again, there’s so much heat in the gaze that Gimli feels himself melting into his boots.

Someone nearby makes a sound as though to silence their interruption of the lovely, endless, morose yet chipper ballad about the undying lands. Gimli nods in apology to the offended fellow and ducks away, pausing only to whisper, “The northmost fountain,” into Legolas’s pointed ear.

~~~

The northmost fountain was chosen both for its specificity, which would prevent misunderstanding, and for the speed with which Gimli could come up with the words. It was not chosen for any other reason, so perhaps it’s unsurprising that the northmost fountain, when he finally locates it, is not a good meeting place at all. Dozens of glowing windows light it very well for observation by passersby on the ground or the inhabitants of the windowed rooms above. It is on a main thoroughfare of the valley, which provides plenty of foot traffic. And on top of that, it is a rather chilly place to sit for two hours in the middle of a November night. The stone lip of the fountain pool seems to absorb all the cold from the Misty Mountains snowmelt it contains as well as the icy winds from the north that hit here first and strongest.

Still, it is a meeting place.

Legolas appears when the moon is high in the sky, sheathing them in blue light and shadow. Without a word, he moves closer. Gimli’s throat clutches around a thousand possibilities—a forceful kiss, a touch, shared breath, an impassioned whisper—but Legolas merely sits beside him in a silent flurry of green robes. 

Their hands splay flat on the stretch of stone between them. Gimli looks down at their fingers, close enough to touch yet not touching, and realizes he has no idea of how to proceed with this rendezvous. Are they here to talk? Are they here for something else? Are they here to silently share space, let their fingers reach across the span of cold granite separating them, and no more?

Gimli tosses the thick weight of his hair to one side to make it easier to watch the elf’s face, which is turned up so that the moonlight drips over his features most appealingly. He realizes now that he was unconsciously anticipating Legolas being the one to direct the course of their meeting, for Gimli has little experience initiating affairs with elves. But passivity is apparently not a viable option. Tentatively, he starts, “Moments of solitude are preciously rare commodities in this valley.”

A shadow passes a window above them. Gimli looks into the distance, mindful of the possibility of being observed by those who might make much of an illicit meeting of a dwarf and an elven prince.

“And yet,” says Legolas, hushed, “should I come upon one, I would trade it for something less than solitude.”

Gimli takes this both as an admission that Legolas feels similarly doubtful of their privacy in this moment and as a promise that words and touches would be more free-flowing if their circumstances were different. It makes his heart pound enough to feel trapped in its cage. “If you traded solitude for something _less than_ solitude, then to make the trade more equitable, it is only fair that you should ask for something that you want.”

The strong, elegant fingers splayed beside his flex an inch closer. “The ears of even my most distant kin are keen.” Gimli watches his knuckles bend as he grips the flat stone between them, and he struggles not to gasp at the thought of that hand clutching other, more pliable materials. “If I were to voice a request, my kin, and yours, too, would know of it before it could even be fulfilled.” Legolas turns his head, dark eyes full of moonshine and regret.

Gimli wishes he knew whether and how the elves would punish them for any transgression, or whether the secrecy is for _his_ kin’s sake. But knowing wouldn’t really change anything, for even if the elves would celebrate them, it would not change the fact that his father would drag him all the way out of the valley by his beard if it came out that the reason he had been delaying their departure was because he wanted to taste elven cock.

Desire lumps in his throat. “There are other ways to make requests besides voicing them,” he rasps.

Somewhere across the way, a roar of laughter erupts over the sound of a breaking clay dish, startling them both into looking at the stars. Gimli marvels at how people can partake in such revelry in the midst of speculation about the end of the world as they know it, and yet he must seek his revelry in the shadows and find little more than frustration because of a handful of old traditions.

When the laughter tapers off and Gimli’s heart stops hammering, Legolas replies, “The eyes of my kin notice much, and I have heard that dwarves, too, see well in the dark.”

Gimli’s wariness of onlookers renews. He leans forward with his elbows on his knees, resting his head onto the point of his joined thumbs in the anguish of unsatisfied longing. “Then why have you teased me so?” he whispers. In the darkness beneath his eyelids, he recalls Legolas’s hopeful, meaningful looks from earlier that night, from the night before that, from so many other times. To shake off the memory, in case it might mean nothing, he looks up.

Legolas is smiling at him. “Perhaps I trusted you to choose a better meeting place.”

Struck in the heart by the heat of that smile, in the head by the humor of his failed attempt at seduction, Gimli laughs. As the night goes on, he laughs, and he laughs some more, and he learns that the laughter of elves really does sound like music, as they say.

~~~

Their next meeting place, despite having been chosen by the elf, falls short of their qualifications for privacy as well. The one after that is even worse, so they settle for strolling about the gardens in the middle of the afternoon.

There, at last, they find a moment for a kiss.

Gimli can’t stop thinking about it at dinner later that day. Every time he wraps his fingers around a utensil or a cup, his hand aches numbly with the memory of grabbing that slight, strange, slip of a waist that filled his palm so perfectly. Every time he brings food to his mouth, the flavors taste bland and bitter in comparison to his memory of the spice of Legolas’s lips, tongue, breath. And of course, every time he cranes his neck to look at Legolas seated at another table, he sees the elf’s chest rise and fall dramatically, as though he hasn’t stopped panting since the moment their kiss was interrupted by voices coming from around the corner of a hedge. The sight fills Gimli with the agony of having left a job unfinished.

Late that night, with the moon dissolving to a coy sliver above them, they run into the hills together, racing and giggling like young children.

Gimli’s cock is hard before Legolas even touches it. “I have been thinking of nothing but this for weeks,” Legolas says, hushed and hungry, bent low to watch his own hand feeling over every inch of Gimli’s cock, which weeps under the blissful attention. 

“Is it what you imagined?” Gimli is overwhelmed by the calloused touch, by the other hand clutching erratically against his shoulder and pressing him hard against the wall of rock behind him. Legolas’s hair hangs across his face, soft and fragrant like soil and water. He can’t wait to find out what the rest of him smells like.

Legolas does not answer the question, apparently too intent on figuring out just how to work Gimli’s cock to make it twitch and leak. “You’re so hot, you could burn my hand.”

Gimli grabs the sharp hinge of Legolas’s jaw and rubs his mouth, stomach dropping at its softness. “I could burn your mouth.”

The laugh vibrating against his hand mingles with a groan. A pained look passes across Legolas’s brow as he drops to his knees, and then the only thoughts fluttering around in Gimli’s useless head for some time are _his mouth, his mouth, his mouth._

~~~

Gimli half-expects it to be over with, then. He hasn’t given a lot of thought to it, but when he wakes the next morning, sore and sated in a way that fills him with energy, he notices a wisp of disappointment curling in his chest like too-sweet smoke. He had gotten his taste of the elf, and Legolas had surely been only satisfying a curiosity and would now be ready to move onto the next new, exotic experience.

Gimli does not know much about the ways of elves, but he knows enough to doubt the likelihood of an extended arrangement between an elf and a dwarf. Gimli has a mountain to return to; Legolas has his forest. They have already stretched their stay here beyond what is reasonable under the guise of interest in the information being brought back by scouting missions seeking out these so-called Black Riders. It seems futile to imagine finding time for a second tryst.

And yet Gimli’s cock twitches against his thigh when a breeze stirs up the scent of the musk and sweat from between Legolas’s thighs that is trapped in the fibers of his beard.

He washes and grooms himself thoroughly before joining his family for breakfast.

_I sucked an elf’s cock_ , he thinks about saying at the breakfast table, just to enjoy the shock on his father’s face. _I let him fuck my throat and swallowed everything he had to give_. He simply smiles instead, holding the knowledge inside and letting it warm him like liquor on a cold day. He imagines the whole of his life stretched out before him, forever marked by this one strange and secret encounter. He tries to ignore the sadness he feels at the thought of the encounter’s brevity, for shouldn’t all things worth remembering be long-lasting?

So when Legolas walks by and stealthily drops a handwritten note into his lap stating a place and a time, relief floods Gimli’s body, and a smile grows so wide across his face that he has to invent a story to justify it to his father.

They don’t even get as far as they had the night before, though. Legolas pins him to the hard mound of earth beneath them, pulls his shirts open, buries his face beneath the drape of his beard, and scours his mouth raw on the hair on Gimli’s chest. They come like that, with Legolas working them both in his dexterous hands while Gimli watches his lips and tongue move across his sternum aimlessly—or rather, as though his sternum itself is the aim, and the touch of it against Legolas’s mouth a pleasure itself. Gimli can’t remember ever being looked at or tasted exactly like this, and for some reason, it makes him feel more desired than he has ever felt before. It makes him come so hard that he manages to make a mess of both their shirts, with perhaps some of the blame for that belonging to Legolas, who seemed eager to let the splatters fall where they would.

“My father would kill me if he saw me like this,” Legolas hums later, his face now slack and smiling where it is laid on Gimli’s chest.

Gimli laughs. He enjoys the way Legolas curls his fingers into his beard as though to keep from being bucked off by the vibration. “My father would kill you if he saw you like this, too.”

Legolas swats his shoulder and crawls up to kiss Gimli until the earth seems to melt underneath him.

~~~

They do not see each other every day, much to the dismay of Gimli, who wants to make the most of their limited time. What started out as him delaying the dwarves’ departure until something could happen between him and Legolas has turned into delaying their departure for as long as possible so that he can see as much of the elf as he can before it inevitably becomes impossible. Soon, the ring will go south with the hobbit called Frodo, and there will be no excuse to keep Gimli’s family in Rivendell that could outweigh the pressing need to pass over the mountains before the deep of winter sets in.

“Hm, you feel too good,” Legolas says languidly, resting against a tree while Gimli’s sealed lips slide over every surface of his cock. “I shall miss this when it is gone.”

The words turn Gimli to brittle shale. He spins Legolas around by his hips, spreads his cheeks, and fixes his mouth to the tight furl of muscle he has not touched before, licking and sucking until Legolas loses the ability to speak.

Gimli savors the taste in his mouth for hours afterward.

On the first night that truly feels like winter, Legolas voices thoughts that Gimli had been slowly brewing in his own mind, waiting for the right time to share them. “I enjoy your company.”

Gimli twists the flat brown nipple he had been gently petting a moment ago, and Legolas flinches deliciously before he laughs, accepting the punishment for his self-evident statement. “I enjoy yours.”

“It would not be a burden to continue enjoying your company.” Legolas’s voice is quieter this time, more thoughtful and vulnerable.

Gimli, who has been slowly brewing this same thought in his mind for some time, feels his heart thump in his chest. “Indeed, I would be eager to arrange for such a continuation.” He chooses not to notice the fluttering lightness of hope that settles over his body at the prospect. 

Legolas turns away from the stars to lie on his side. Gimli continues stroking the smooth marble of his chest, refusing to get lost in the flighty, magical promises of the dark gaze that’s fixed on him. “It is unfortunate that you would not be welcome in my father’s halls, nor I in your mountain.”

Unbidden and nonsensical, the thought strikes Gimli that any _partner_ of his would be welcome in his family’s home, no matter their gender, heritage, or history. His family would accept any choice and welcome any person Gimli loved. But such a fact bears little relevance to their situation, for bringing home a strange elf for illicit casual trysts would require pretense, and pretense is not something Gimli is particularly good at inventing.

“We must meet between worlds, then,” Gimli says with forced joviality and no lack of levity.

“Between worlds,” Legolas murmurs happily, gripping Gimli’s wrist and pushing his hand down past the back of his breeches and between the globes of his arse.

That night, Gimli falls asleep smelling his own fingers, heart in his throat.

~~~

Gloin is grumbling again, but for once, Gimli is listening intently.

“I do not know why they are waiting around for scouts to come back to report what everyone already suspects. They are wasting precious time, and it is no secret. The ring must go south as soon as possible, and they have yet to decide on who will accompany its bearer.”

“For the journey south?” Gimli asks, pausing in the braiding of his beard.

“Yes, for the journey south. It has been suggested that the company should represent each of the free peoples of Middle Earth, but I have made it very clear that I will have no part in such an adventure. We came here for answers about our own troubles, and instead of answers, we have been provided only with further opportunity to provide _them_ with time, energy, and information. I have had enough.”

Gimli notes that the issue of the ring and the evil growing in the east might warrant a shift in his father’s attitude, but his own personal troubles feel more pressing than any other they are discussing. “Are they sending an elf?”

Gloin scoffs. “Of course they’re sending an elf.”

Gimli gives up on his braid altogether. “Has there been any discussion of _which_ elf might be going on this long journey through the wilderness, between worlds?”

“Probably someone insignificant. I doubt they would waste the blood of any of their strong warriors on this suicide mission.”

Gimli stops listening then. He finishes his beard without looking, his mind’s eye full of stars and endless fields and soft, quiet, secret places to lie.

~~~

Legolas meets him at the same fountain they met at weeks ago with a question on his brow.

“I was hoping to speak with you,” Gimli offers as explanation for his choice of location, trying to regulate the eagerness in his voice. 

Wine-stained lips purse into a tight smile. “I was hoping to suck your cock and _then_ speak with you.”

Gimli wheezes slightly, looking around to make sure there’s no one around to get an eyeful of the effect those words have on the front of his trousers.

Once they’re both seated some distance apart on the frozen fountain’s edge, quiet except for their breaths, Gimli calms down. He even accepts the goblet Legolas offers him, just to taste the remnants of his spit mixed with the bitter wine. “There has been some discussion of whether a dwarf might volunteer for this journey to accompany the ring-bearer.”

Silently, Legolas takes the cup back and sips. “It might be a long journey, with many lonely nights.”

“Aye, many nights in lands belonging to neither elf nor dwarf.” He turns his head to look away from Legolas, afraid he might lean in and do something inappropriate if he looks too close. “But not necessarily lonely.” He hears a shift where Legolas sits but nothing more. “After all, it has been suggested that the company should include, in addition to the hobbit, a wizard, a man, a dwarf, and—an elf.”

Legolas slides several inches closer. Gimli is braced for rejection of his idea, so he initially feels nothing when he hears the elf say, “I thought I would have to suck your cock to get you in a state where you would agree to such a thing.”

When it hits Gimli, all he can think of is how badly he wants to lick the breathy smile right off Legolas’s shapely lips.

~~~

Perhaps they grow lazy with the prospect of their shared journey and all the better opportunities it will afford them, or perhaps it’s something else, but they spend a great deal more time talking over the next week than they ever have before.

_“What is your father_ actually _like?”_

_“Did you know, I had never kissed a dwarf before you?”_

_“I could teach you how to throw axes. I suspect you would be very good at it.”_

_“Once we’re out there, away from prying eyes, I would_ love _to have you, have_ all _of you, in me.”_

_“Have you ever been to Erebor?”_

_“Surely we will not be expected to go all the way east. We could promise to get the company as far as the mountains and then assess whether to continue at that point.”_

On this last point, Gimli ruminates for several long minutes. He rests his head on the soft, flat wall of Legolas’s abdomen, allowing Legolas to thrust his spent cock curiously and idly against his beard. Instead of teasing him about it, Gimli tries to reckon with the sadness overtaking him at the thought of Legolas already planning their separation from one another. He knows this affair will run its course. He does not know why he resists Legolas’s willingness to talk about its inevitable end.

Finally, he clears his throat. “Aye. Who knows where the journey will take us by then?”

~~~

The date of their departure from Rivendell keeps getting pushed further and further back. It is nearly enough to drive Gimli mad. All he can think about is the deep, choked, whining sounds Legolas makes and the sounds he might make when they’re being punched out of him by Gimli’s cock under the night sky, far away from camp where no one else can hear them. Every second in Rivendell is now a second that could otherwise be spent thoroughly unravelling Legolas from the inside out.

“Why, again, are you doing this?” his father asks, startling him from his reverie. Gimli lets his eyes come back into focus around the candlelight at their dinner table. “You don’t have to, you know. You would be welcome to come back with us. It would not be dishonorable.”

The heat of the flame as he leans toward it presses against his lips, somehow tasking like Legolas’s kiss. His stomach lurches in desire to be anywhere but here. “It seems like the right thing to do.”

Gloin turns back to his food with a shrug. “Well, don’t overdo it. I doubt that flimsy prince from Mirkwood will be straining himself to do the right thing. If he backs out, you should, too.”

Later that night, Gimli is bursting with excitement at the announcement that they are finally set to depart the next day. “My father called you ‘flimsy,’” he tells Legolas, not sure what reaction he is trying to tease out of him. Does he want Legolas to care what his father thinks of him? Does he want Legolas to physically remind him how sturdy he actually is? It does not matter, for his thoughts are quickly swept away by a storm of kisses.

After a minute, Legolas pulls back with blinking eyes, apparently just hearing Gimli’s words. “Flimsy?” His smile is paired with a small furrow in between his dark brows. He braces himself up over Gimli, aligning their bodies to emphasize his strength and the length of his torso, his erection grinding pleasantly just beneath Gimli’s. “I’ll have you know, I can be fucked very, _very_ hard and not be broken.”

And thus Gimli’s thoughts, save for one, are gone again. He is caught in an endless loop of being about to realize something about how badly he wants Legolas in his arms, only to have his realizations interrupted by how badly he wants to have Legolas in his arms.

With one swift move, he switches their positions, pushing Legolas into the earth and smiling with fierce pleasure at the flush spreading across Legolas’s face. “I am counting on it.”

~~~

The first time he sees Legolas with his bow is when the company gathers outside the great hall to prepare to leave. It is an arresting sight, not only because he stands tall and beautiful in the orange glow of the firelight coming through the windows. He looks every bit the elven warrior who has been fighting battles since before Gimli’s grandfather was born. His long knife has probably shed blood in more parts of the world than Gimli has even heard of.

And all at once, Gimli acutely feels the foolishness of throwing himself headlong into an encounter with someone who will likely not remember him two hundred years hence.

Unfortunately, Gimli has the tendency to respond to feeling foolish by throwing himself even more forcefully into whatever it is, for it is the only chance to prove he was right.

“You may tarry, or come back, or turn aside into other paths, as chance allows,” Lord Elrond tells the assembled group. “The further you go, the less easy it will be to withdraw, yet no oath or bond is laid on you to go further than you will. For you do not yet know the strength of your hearts, and you cannot foresee what each may meet upon the road.”

Gimli feels these last words pointed at his own heart like the dull pressure of a spear through chain mail. And like chain mail, his heart resists. “Faithless is he that says farewell when the road darkens,” he says. He does not dare to look at Legolas while he says it, but he feels his attention from across the courtyard like heat from a fire.

Elrond rounds in on him, brow furrowed. Gimli sweats under his winter cloaks, sensing that Elrond can see he was not speaking _only_ of his commitment to keeping Frodo safe on his quest. Could he have known already what Gimli’s motivations for volunteering had been? Could Gimli have given his secrets away to the elf lord in just this one moment? But regardless, Elrond could not understand the half of it. For no matter how old-fashioned the elves are and how traditional the dwarves, Legolas and Gimli have clearly both come to live lives free of their respective cultural practices of lifelong, exclusive marriage. 

Not that Gimli would have any trouble committing to one person, if the time came.

“Maybe,” Elrond says sternly. “But let him not vow to walk in the dark, who has not seen the nightfall.”

For some reason, it is vital to him that Elrond, and any other elf in the room who might hear, understands that he would never be the first to back out of something he agreed to, that he would find strength and purpose in being asked to agree to more. “Yet sworn word may strengthen quaking heart.”

“Or break it.” Elrond glares at him once more before stepping away, leaving Gimli adrift in his thoughts of broken hearts. “Look not too far ahead!”

Gimli can keep his gaze from Legolas no longer. When his eyes find their mark, Legolas shifts ever so slightly to stare straight ahead like a soldier in line and not one who was eyeing a dwarf mere moments ago. Gimli craves to know what he is thinking: whether he is looking far ahead or whether elves are truly masters of not committing to any moment but the present.

When the fellowship gather their belongings and start to walk, Legolas finally meets his eyes with a slight smirk about his lips, which he then dares to lick.

All thoughts of broken hearts, choices awaiting them at the Misty Mountains, and immortality fade from Gimli’s mind. He looks ahead to the coming night, and no further. 

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! If you want to yell with me about these guys, come [say hi to me on Tumblr](https://newleafover.tumblr.com) or [join our explicit content Gigolas fest](https://gigolasfuckfest2020.tumblr.com)!!


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